I love reading and writing stories about successful people who overcame obstacles to live out their dreams. Today I am delighted to share a story about Steven Spielberg. It is not only inspiring, it is also chock full of coaching tips and strategies that you can apply to your own business goals and dreams.

Get Out of Your Own Way

by Doug Stevenson

Why are some people successful and others are not? Why do some people pursue their dreams with relentless determination while others give up before they ever get started?

From my observations, people who succeed get out of their own way and people who fail let self-limiting beliefs, challenges and setbacks get in their way. One of the most common ways that people get in their own way is when they interpret obstacles, limitations or difficulties personally, and therefore they believe that something is wrong with them or that they cannot reach their goal. People who get out of their own way don’t take anything personally! They just get creative and find alternative ways to continue towards their goals.

I’ve been researching successful people and what it took for them to get where they are today. One person who has always intrigued me is Steven Spielberg. His personal story is as fascinating as one of his favorite characters, Indiana Jones.

From my research, I discovered that when Steven was 8 years old, he borrowed his dad’s 8-millimeter movie camera and started shooting anything in front of him. On family vacations, he’d get his family to restage their activities to make the scenes more artistic.

When he was 12, when most guys his age spent their weekends watching Flash Gordon on TV (it was 1958) or playing baseball in the park, Steven was busy pursuing his goal to be the next Cecil B. DeMille. At that time, there were lots of World War II fighter pilot movies – probably all starring John Wayne – so Steven decided to make his first movie a fighter pilot story.

Take An Idea and Run with It.

Without concern that he was only 12 and didn’t have much money, Steven went to the manager of the Phoenix airport and somehow gained his permission to shoot fake dogfight scenes in the cockpits of Vintage airplanes. He got his friends to dress up in army surplus World War II uniforms, splattered them with ketchup for blood, and told them to act like enemy aircraft was shooting at them.

Steven created an editing room – probably in his bedroom or in the basement – and interspersed the badly acted scenes with real documentary footage of midair dogfights. He called his first film, Fighter Squad.

Talk about someone who’s a self-starter! Here is someone with a passion and a strong desire to achieve a goal.

No excuses.

There is more to Steven’s story. As I understand, Steven didn’t have it easy growing up. He was the oldest of four kids, with three younger sisters. His dad was an engineer and his mom was a concert pianist. His family moved three times. His dad worked long hours and was seldom home, and when he was home, it was reported that his parents fought all the time. You can imagine what it must have been like around the dinner table, when his dad was home: lots of arguments and tension.

Steven longed for a father figure in his life. When he tried to connect with his dad, the two of them argued about Steven’s poor grades in school. So Steven escaped into the fantasy world of his movies. In fact, he spent so much of his time making films that he didn’t pay much attention to his studies, which is why he ended up getting C’s instead of the A’s and B’s he was capable of.

His teachers described Steven as an intelligent but awkward and geeky kid who was bullied by the other kids. He was also the only Jew in a very “wasp” neighborhood. And to top it off, he had a strange preoccupation with cameras and movies.

By the time he was 17, he’d made four films. His parents were divorced by now. Steven applied to the two best film schools, UCLA and USC, but his poor grades kept him out. After a summer job as a clerical intern at Universal Studios, he enrolled in Cal State Long Beach. Bored by his classes and anxious to get on with his movie career, he dropped out and began to hang around on the Universal Studios lot where TV shows and movies were being shot.

Push the Limits.

Even though his clerical intern job was over and he no longer had any business being on the lot, Steven knew that the guards would still recognize him, so he dressed in his suit and tie, grabbed an old briefcase, and as if in a scene from Indiana Jones, he walked right up to the gate, waved to the guards and strolled through onto the studio lot.

Once on the lot, he hung around every department he could get into, asking questions. He introduced himself to actors, producers and directors. He watched movies being shot and soaked up everything he could. Years later, he said he probably got kicked off of a set every day. Obviously, rejection didn’t stop him.

View Obstacles as Detours to Success.

Steven was relentless and found creative ways to break the rules and write his own. Eventually, after being on the lot so much, he had people assuming that he worked for someone. With his ruse firmly established, it was time to make the next move. He had an 8-millimeter film that he wanted the studio executives to watch. He got it into their hands, but they told him they’d only look at it if it were shot on 16 millimeter.

Undeterred, he rented a camera and over the weekend made a new film in 16-millimeter. Then they told him not to come back until he shot it in 35-millimeter. Without hesitation, he went home and shot the film again.

Impressed by Steven’s relentless determination, the studio executives agreed to look at it. The 26-minute movie was called Amblin, and it won a prize at the Atlanta film festival. More importantly, though, Universal signed him on a 7-year contract to direct TV and movies. Steven was 22 years old.

Steven Spielberg is the most successful movie director of all time. His films include Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Indiana Jones, ET, Poltergeist, The Color Purple, Shindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan.

Pursue Your Goal with Relentless Determination – Get Out of Your Own Way!

When Steven didn’t get into the prestigious film schools, he didn’t take the rejection personally. He simply charted a different path to his goal. When he was kicked off of a movie set, he didn’t call the plan a failure. He just moved over to another set. When he was told to shoot his film in another format, he didn’t let the obstacle stop him. He accepted the challenge and shot the film again… and again.

Successful people don’t make excuses. They don’t take rejection personally. They don’t turn limitations into self-limiting beliefs. They pursue their goals with relentless determination. They take chances, break the rules and get out of their own way. They tear down walls and remove the obstacles that others put in their path.

Life is hard enough. Don’t make it harder by building your own walls from the inside and getting in your own way. There are plenty of walls to climb and knock down without you making more. Get out of your own way. If you have a dream, pursue it. If you have a goal, work a little every day to achieve it.

Steven started when he was 8 years old. His dream came true when he was 22. It took him 14 years. If it’s true that it might take awhile for your dream to come true, shouldn’t you get started today?

It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day stress of everyday life: deadlines to meet, schedules to keep, unexpected expenses, conflicts to resolve, illness of loved ones, to name a few. Amidst all this, it is easy to for me to lose sight of why I do what I do ? my purpose for being. I discovered my passion and my purpose over seven years ago. It was the catalyst for starting my business, The Center for Balanced Living in 1996. It is what led me to my purpose which is to empower you to live out your dreams with ease and abundance. Sometimes I get caught up in the external factors and forget to focus on what is really important. It is then that I must remind myself why I am here. It is a grounding place for me.

I teach my clients to look to their life for their passions and purpose. That is certainly where mine came from and I have found it to be true for many others. A lot of different threads weave through my story, but the most obvious and first I can remember centered around my life while I was growing up, and most specifically my dad. I’d like to share that story with you now.

I always had the impression my dad was unhappy. Actually, miserable is more the way I would describe him. He was mostly unhappy about his jobs . . . all of them that I can remember. I vividly remember my dad coming home from work, with his shoulders hunched over and his head hanging low. He would walk right past a mosaic picture of horses pulling a carriage through the snow.

Looking exhausted and sad, he would sit down at the kitchen table and say to my mom, ?Charlie (that?s what he called her), I can?t take it anymore. I want to quit my job!? And I can remember my mom, who was looking after our security and well-being in the best way she knew how, saying, ?Just hang in there Mac. Stick it out! We need the money!? And I can remember thinking, ?Yeah! Hang in there! We need the money!? We didn?t have much money in those days.

This story repeated itself year after year, as my dad persevered. The last two years of his career were literally a countdown to retirement at age 65. My dad retired at age 65. Two years later, he did some introspective thinking at the prompting of his daughter. At age 67, my dad declared himself an artist. I can still remember the moment he told me. My eyes got teary as I recalled the beautiful, mosaic picture on their living-room wall.

You see my dad made that mosaic picture, but I never saw him working on it. He created it before I was born. It was a beautiful mosaic, made of thousands of small hand-cut tiles. My dad had always been an artist but had suppressed that talent for most of his life while he strove to earn a living for his family. He worked in the garment industry in New York, and then the carpet industry in Florida. I often wonder what would have been possible if my dad had worked out a way to utilize his artistic abilities in his jobs. He had always been a good employee; he might have been a happy one too.

For a while my dad was happier than I had ever seen him. He carved wood etchings and gave them away as gifts. He traveled to places he had never seen. He also made more money in his investments than he did at his jobs. I am glad he had that short time period when he was happy. Unfortunately, it wasn?t too long before my dad?s health started to decline. Eventually, he lost patience and could no longer focus on his artwork. And right now, he is not strong enough to travel. My dad waited until he retired to do what he loved. It was a small time window in the whole continuum of his life. That is why, more than ever, I strongly urge people to move forward now — don?t wait until you retire to do what you love. We all tend to live as if we have forever, but really, who knows our time allotment?

Are you doing what you love to do?
If not, what is one action step you can take today to move you forward?

Do you know your purpose in life? If so, take the time today to get re-grounded in it. If not, take the time to reflect on what you want to contribute in this lifetime. Consider hiring a coach to help you discover that.

Article by Stacey Mayo. Stacey Mayo founded the Center for Balanced Living in 1995 as a vehicle for carrying out her life’s work and has since supported thousands of people in making their dreams come true. She is author of “I Can’t Believe I Get Paid To Do This! “: Remarkable People Reveal 26 Proven Strategies for Making Your Dreams a Reality.

To receive more articles like this, subscribe to my monthly ezine, Living Out Your Dreams and receive a free self-assessment for Healthy Success.

Every year, people resolve that this year will be different: “This will be the year that I write that book, start that new venture, double my income, take more time off to spend with my family,” and the list goes on and on. However, when people think about pursuing their dreams, they often squash the idea because it doesn’t seem practical.

Does this sound familiar? You have a dream, but are afraid that if you pursue it, you would risk giving up what you already have. It is easy to put it off to a later date — a time when there will be more money, more time and/or when the kids have graduated from college.

However, there is never a time when everything in your life is perfect for carrying out your goals. Don’t wait for everything to be lined up. Once you actually commit to your dream, things will begin to fall into place. Know that is possible to live out your fondest dreams AND make a great living!

After supporting thousands of people across the globe in making their personal and professional dreams a reality, I have found the following strategies to be most effective:

* First, design your life around your priorities. Many people try to fit their dreams into their life and complain there are not enough hours in the day to make it happen. If you want your dream to become a reality, make it a priority.

For example, Stacy Allison, the first American woman to climb Mt. Everest chose to live just outside of Zion National Park so she could climb rock cliffs in her own backyard. Climbing was her priority for many years and she made choices in alignment with that.

* Second, handle the basics (food, clothing and shelter) then reach for fulfillment and self-actualization. If you can’t stand your job any longer or have been forced out and you need a source of income, get a low-stress interim job to pay the bills while your pursue your dream.

* Visualize every step of your dream and watch the magic unfold. For example, an experiment conducted by Australian Psychologist Alan Richardson found a 23 percent performance improvement among subjects who visualized every day for 20 days.

Mary Youngblood went from welfare mom to Grammy award winner. Mary visualized herself out of welfare. She did this by writing a short story about a young welfare mother. It was her story, basically, and how she was discovered having great talent and was able to get herself up and out of welfare. She pictured it happening in her head and then took action in alignment with that picture.

* Laser in on one idea, business or income stream at a time. One of the mistakes people make is diversifying too quickly. This is true whether you are trying to build multiple streams of income or are just working on several different ideas at one time. The key is getting the first stream or idea up and running and having systems in place so it will keep running without you before going on to the next unrelated stream.

This is one of my biggest lessons as it is for many entrepreneurs and creative people. When I was writing, “I Can’t Believe I Get Paid To Do This!” I was also looking for real estate investments which was a new venture for me. I wasn’t making much progress on either count. When I put the real estate to the side and committed to finishing the book, it happened quite easily.

And last but not least, develop your resilience muscle by bouncing back from setbacks. You will very likely have setbacks along the way. Don’t get stopped by these bumps in the road; learn from them.

Article by Stacey Mayo. Stacey Mayo founded the Center for Balanced Living in 1995 as a vehicle for carrying out her life’s work and has since supported thousands of people in making their dreams come true. She is author of “I Can’t Believe I Get Paid To Do This! “: Remarkable People Reveal 26 Proven Strategies for Making Your Dreams a Reality.

To receive more articles like this, subscribe to my monthly ezine, Living Out Your Dreams and receive a free self-assessment for Healthy Success.